Minolta X500's Pictures

Nothing doing on the picture front. Just got my new phone connected to my works email so I suspect I shall be busy from now until... well a long time despite which I hope it will allow me to take the average sort of rubbish that you expect of this site hence the archive pic and not with the new piece of kit (which can be examined in the equipment area... yes it's an iPhone but better as far as I am concerned).

No this pic is quite old indeed in fact it pre-dates the site itself. It's a picture of Malaga and my Dad. I never really thought it was interesting until now but it does have this weird feeling about it because the perspective is all wrong and the focus is weird and the mist. I just like it and I hope you do too.

No this isn't a vision of Crosby beach if the humans had died out and the green green grass of home had encroached on the beach despite the fact that the opposite usually happens, no this is another scan mistake from the ION Negative scanner. Looks good though.

We went off to Crorby beach last month. This time it was the wrong time. The day before it was nice and sunny with reports of the next day being awful, and low as the weathermen said it happened. Yes they were right for once. Then when we were cold and ready to go back to the car, my daughter fell over... well I though she fell over. It looked like she was on her knees until it was pointed out to me her legs were not bent. So a rescue mission was started to extricate her from the mud. Once she was free the next mission was to free the wellies.

Not sure I realised how this would turn out when I took it. I seem to remember I went out early to take pictures with this one (and many more). They always say that when there is a bit of mist then the photo appears two dimensional, I thought of this when I took it but I took it anyway. I think in this instance it seems to work because of the two dimensional thing in that the far peninsular looks like it's been dropped in which makes it work as well as the blue feel, but what do I know.

As promised in this post here's a scanned picture of the Venice Carnival. Standing back from the scrum I got my Minolta out with it's zoom to it's full extent and snapped this jewel. Probably not to everyone's taste I might guess. As I have probably mentioned to those of a more photographic bent the zoom crops the depth of field massively so that the focusing is really tight, which is another reason why I like standing back from the scene and zooming in.

It would have been better if I had have got the whole of the left guys face in focus but it's quite difficult because of the tight focus and human targets and the fact that I'm such an amateur. Of course that then reminds me of the other picture like this which is of the Carrera Cup. Again a good picture for me but not something a real photographer will shout about.

Yes I finally found out how to pan. Sorry for those not interested in photography but I was trying my panning techniques at Oulton Park when we were there for the Touring car meet in July. Of course with this technique you do end up with a ton of rubbish photos and just one goodish one. There was a clearer photo but the colours in this worked better.

Needless to say that it's been a bad weekend for pictures because of a bike repair situation and the awful weather but at least I got the twelve spools of film back from the shop so I have billions of rubbish photos to junk with a few gems and this (you might not agree) is one.

Just for the Oulton and car buffs here, this was taken at Druids. A bad place as far as I am concerned to view the race but by the looks of it a good place to take panning pictures with it's sweeping bend. It's rubbish as as spectator because it has trees to the right and left so you have limited vision so the cars appear as if from nowhere trying to hang onto the fast curve and dissapear as quick.

Back to October because nothing interesting has happened for a while so I decide to post this little arty farty number. Taken with a film camera and partly ruined by the kind chaps at the print lab (the two splodges on it) but at least you can see what I was trying to get at. These pillars lead you from the outside bit of the Plaza de Espana into the fountain in the centre which as I probably mentioned previously was closed when we went. As you can see I was trying to get some depth into the photo which I may have done. From memory I'd arsed up the settings on the camera so I'm surprised anything cam out at all. It's a usual picture for me as it's all about repeated patterns.

On a trip to Lincoln we had a day out to Skegness. Just like the usual British seaside town, there are the usual small scale rides all closed down since it's winter with the usual selection of shops selling gifts and fast food. This picture is less about a closed seaside town and more about the beach as you can see. Perhaps the focus could have gone further out, but the problem might have been that I'd have got too much background in. None the less here's an archive picture, one that I'd almost forgotten about and still rather like. That's not so say that they won't be any chance of pics tomorrow only that due to the lovely weather and my lack of inventiveness, I doubt any pictures happening tomorrow.

With no hope of taking any decent pictures with the bad weather here's an archive pic of St. Andrews castle. I did make an attempt to take go out to take pictures, unfortunately after driving to the Lowry with my camera bag I decided half way that the weather wasn't with me on this one. I could take pictures so long as I didn't mind everything (including me) getting wet. I decided otherwise.

This is what is left of the castle on St. Andrews. I would recommend the place as it's very pretty and almost appears to be a place apart from anywhere else. It also has a public toilet that has been just been sold for £750,000. They must be nice toilets.

Coming up to the second anniversary of Zamyatin I'm getting a little weepy. So I thought I might add a picture or two from the archive that sort of started it all. I'm not saying that the Scotland holiday two years ago prompted the website but the first pic was from the holiday two years ago. And instead of chucking the holiday pictures live two years ago (which I think was a good idea) I started on a weekly quest to see as I saw. Here is a Peacock in at Drummond Castle that I waited for ages to get. The bird paraded and then stopped at which I took interest so I waited for a bit, then a little longer and then, snap, I got the picture I was looking for.

Just outside the Museum in the centre of Liverpool is this sight. I wish I'd have looked at what the statue was so I could tell you about it. If I'm lucky someone will comment on this picture and tell you/me, however I suspect I'll get the same old spam from the comments.